The Rails Wheels licencing system and Open Source

[Mark James]

Russ Nelson wrote:
> Mark Reginald James writes:
>  > I'd appreciate some help assessing the compatibility of
>  > the Rails Wheels licencing system with the OSI definition
>  > of Open Source.
> 
> Completely incompatible, sorry.  I appreciate that you're trying to do
> a good thing.  You can do it, and it may be a success.  But it won't
> be Open Source.

This discussion has helped me clarify the one or two points
where the Rails Wheels licencing system falls short of
the OSI definition of Open Source.

I'll refrain from associating the words "Open Source Software"
with those packages that impose a Rails Wheels commercial licence
condition on some users, instead using the "Spec Software" term
that I've used on the site's FAQs page, connecting the licencing
system to the way spec scripts are offered and sold.

I'll still use either "open-source" or "exposed-source" to describe
free access to source code, preferring the latter due to the high
change of ambiguity. ("Open-source spec software" likewise.)

Mark